Six Steps To Move From Founder- Led Sales To Scalable Sales BY MIKE HUEY John owned a distribution company, and he was the entire sales department. Every major deal ran through him. Every key relationship lived in his phone. He was missing his daughter's dance recitals. His wife told him he was never home. The business was growing, but John had become its ceiling. If you own a company, you may be living John's story right now. What changed for him? He applied the six steps that moved his company from founder-led sales to a sales team that grows without him carrying every deal. Step 1: Get the Sales Process Out of Your Head Most owners have already systemized operations. Whether it's a shop floor or a service team, other people can deliver what you sell because the process is docu- mented. Very few have done the same for sales. The process lives between the owner's ears. Step one is getting it onto paper: first a flowchart, then a detailed playbook. A new salesperson should be able to pick it up and know the steps to take, the emails to send, the message points to hit, and how to quote and close.
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Everything else is built on this foundation. Your CRM and your compensation plan should both match the play- book. If they don't, you're paying people to run a process you never defined. Step 2: Build a Lead Generation System Many owners hire a salesperson and expect them to generate their own leads. That might work in a very small company. It won't build a high-performing sales team. Finding leads and closing leads are two different skill sets, and few people excel at both. Strong teams sepa- rate the work. An internal employee or outside marketing firm generates leads from trade shows, website inquiries, and other sources. Salespeople spend their time in front of customers: qualifying, quoting, and closing. That takes a real marketing budget. Too many com- panies invest half a percent to one percent of revenue in marketing and then wonder why the pipeline is empty. Step 3: Make the CRM Your Single Source of Truth There’s a saying among Company Sales Directors that CONTINUED ON PAGE 38
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